Occupied East Jerusalem – Moments after arriving at Damascus Gate, one of the main entrances to Jerusalem’s Old City, I found myself surrounded by four Israeli paramilitary officers.
“What’s in your bags?” » asked one of the officers as she began to unzip and rummage through my backpack, clearly not ready to wait for my answer. Another grabbed my purse to look inside.
For once, I felt what it means to be a Palestinian in occupied East Jerusalem. Men – young people in particular – are searched daily by Israeli officers, almost always arbitrarily.
“You are not allowed to sit here,” they told me.
“I’m standing, not sitting, and waiting for a friend,” I replied.
“You are not allowed to stay here.”
It took me a moment to process what I had heard. There I was, in a public space that has special meaning and memories for almost every Palestinian in Jerusalem, and Israeli officers told me I wasn’t even allowed to stay there.
As a Jerusalemite myself and as a journalist who has covered the city for a decade, I have watched Jerusalem’s busiest and busiest shopping center for Palestinians, tourists and pilgrims transform into a city ghost.
Since Israeli bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip began on October 7, Israeli forces have imposed a strict lockdown on the Old City, located in the occupied eastern part of Jerusalem. Only people whose addresses are registered within the 16th-century walls are allowed entry through what locals describe as a siege.
On February 9, however, Israeli forces eased restrictions slightly, allowing a limited number of Palestinians from outside the Old City to enter for Friday prayers. It is for this reason that I found myself at the Damascus Gate, Bab el-Amoud in Arabic, the largest and most magnificent of the seven open gates of the Old City, used mainly by Palestinians and tourists.
Surrounding the gate’s 12-meter (40-foot) walls is a large semi-circular amphitheater, where Palestinians traditionally gather to sit and sip coffee with friends and family. The architecture and location of the gate have long made this space a Palestinian cultural and political icon.
I stared in shock at the scene before me: groups of officers guarding the small opening between the metal barricades – essentially checkpoints – placed at the top of the stepped square, just enough room for a single no one can enter at a time.
Although regular users of the Damascus Gate are familiar with Israeli lockdowns and the constant, massive deployment of paramilitary forces, I had never seen it closed in this way before.
After being searched, I entered the gate and stood to the side, out of sight of the soldiers. I rarely report to Israeli forces as a journalist, having witnessed firsthand how many of my Palestinian colleagues in Jerusalem are attacked and prevented from doing their jobs. I know I could easily be a target too.
Over the past decade, Damascus Gate Square has transformed from a market filled with endless stalls, shoppers and families socializing on the steps to an empty, heavily militarized and tense space.
The restrictions came in stages and took multiple forms. For example, in 2016, the Israeli government passed the “stop-and-frisk” law, authorizing Israeli soldiers to search any passerby “regardless of their behavior, in a location considered to be the target of hostile destructive actions.”
The tool is widely used against Palestinians and is a practice that human rights groups have long denounced as “overt racism” and racial profiling. Almost daily we can see young Palestinians searched in a humiliating and provocative manner and very often attacked.
The features of the Damascus Gate themselves have changed in recent years. Israeli authorities have built three large permanent military huts, or watchtowers, where young men are taken and beaten away from public view. I have witnessed this many times.
Sara Abu Dayyeh*, a young Jerusalem resident who did not wish to be named for fear of reprisals, told me: “The Old City has been radically transformed. »
“It’s completely empty. It’s so painful to see,” she said, standing in front of the Damascus Gate checkpoint.
“We always used to go through the Damascus Gate and pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City. Now it is completely prohibited,” Abu Dayyeh continued. “You’re not even allowed to enter the old city to use the toilet!” »
The Old City was once home to a seemingly constant stream of pilgrims and Palestinians crowding its narrow cobblestone streets, coming to visit and pray at some of the world’s holiest sites for Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
But today the Old City is almost empty.
“The Old Town is everything to us. Jerusalem is our heart. This is known to all Palestinians. It’s not even something we can quantify with words or actions,” Abu Dayyeh said.
Many business owners and residents told me they feared that Israeli restrictions would continue and become more severe as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins in March, approaches.
Abu Dayyeh has another concern.
“My only fear is that during Ramadan, young men will not show up in Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, especially Muslim men,” she said.
“In this place where the occupation is trying to impose its control, we Palestinians must impose our presence.
“We don’t tell people to come and fight the soldiers. We are simply emphasizing that as long as you are in this place on Earth, you must come and simply be present here.
*Name has been changed to protect anonymity.